Fireball's '76 build thread - "Piece by Piece" - PAINTED, ASSEMBLED & ON THE ROAD!

[chuckyb]

Beautiful truck all around and great build thread! I am strongly considering the BFG 30s for my planned 1BL after looking at these pictures.

 

[Fireball05]

Thank you! I regret selling it and am actively looking for the next project! Was very happy with the lift and tire combo. That truck drove extremely well.

 

[tasker]

JUS sayin....;D
you can pick em up when you come up for May it forward!

 

[sprdv1]

Thank you! I regret selling it and am actively looking for the next project! Was very happy with the lift and tire combo. That truck drove extremely well.

Always a little self resentment for letting a good one go...

You'll have another one soon enuf I'm sure Good luck

 

[Jwantsbronco]

Good score, nice looking Bronco. Enjoy !!

 

[PorterRob]

Just joined this site. Who did you get to transport it? How much does that cost? How many miles was it? I’m looking for one and am a little leery of buying unseen and shipping. ?:?

 

[Fireball05]

Contact Aaron at Summit Auto Transport. He is a great guy and I have now used him to ship at least a dozen vehicles all across the country for me for various reasons.

He is a broker, not a direct shipper, but he knows the ins and outs of the business and will do all the legwork for you and make sure to use a legit transporter and make sure things go smoothly.

https://summitautotransport.com/

 

[awest5321]

JohnJohn - definitely planning to join the club in the new year. Might try to make it to the Rausch Creek get together in February. Might not be ready for any trails at that point in time, but will hopefully have a working heater by that time!

Got the heater box pulled out, taken apart and all the stuff together for the chevy blower motor upgrade:



Was also able to get the hood struts mounted this morning. Thought that was going to be a quick and easy job, but ended up needing to put the fender brackets in the vise and give them a pretty serious bend. Was worried it was going to crack the powdercoating, but luckily it was OK. Here is a picture of the gap before they were bent.



Also ran into some confusion on where to drill the holes in the hood for the mounts. The diagram scale was completely off. Was able to get it sorted out, so now have working hood struts. That was today's major victory.

That and the Bronco successfully completed its second 16mile round trip to my friends shop!

Good pick on the hood struts. Got mine on several months ago and love them. Keep up the good work on that nice rig.

 

[awest5321]

More fun out in the garage today! Got a new exhaust system installed yesterday. Great experience, was able to use some photos on here to show the shop what I was looking for, and once he got it setup was able to slide a few mufflers on and off. Flowmaster 40, Flowmaster 50, Magnaflow, and some no-name he had on the shelf. Flowmaster 40 and 50 had similar sound, 50 was a bit quieter so that's what I went with.

Whilst out turning wrenches today, came up with another set of questions I'd appreciate some help with:

QUESTION #1: The t-case seemed to be spewing a fair share of its contents about the underside of my Bronco. Checked it out today and it was way overfilled! Or at least I'm hoping it was. Can someone please confirm the bolt is the very center is indeed the fill bolt? I opened that up and drained maybe a quart of oil out.







QUESTION #2. I guess it doesn't really matter since we're filling them anyway, but anyone have any ideas what these holes were in the passenger side floor and firewall area. Maybe an old A/C setup?



Fun patch!



Also, there was a piece of metal covering the passenger side floor area. Couldn't figure out what it was for, here it is looking all innocent:




And here is what it was covering! Anyone guesses what was mounted in the passenger area??

Another thing to worry about when tcase is too full is if water has infiltrated the seals and raised the level of the fluid. If it was me I would drain all the fluid and refill. By removing inspection plate to drain it, you can check the condition of the gears and hopefully won't find anything that warrants tearing it down and rebuild.

 

[awest5321]

Drew, great to meet you Monday and thanks for the grand tour. Lots of fun and lots of cool stuff to look at!

I had another big day today. Was able to adjust the shift link rods and now can easily find neutral! Got my license plate bulb wired up, installed a new ignition switch and got rid of some old jumbled mess of wires under the dash from the previous owner. Oh, got some new lug nuts. All in all, an excellent day in the garage. Getting this thing sorted out one piece at a time.

Need some quick help: anyone have a photo of the reverse sensor wiring, or know what color wires need to be plugged into the plug on the shift column? There are two male spades on the steering column, can't seem to find anything to plug them into.

This is a photo I took to show the pin locking the shift rods into neutral. The reverse sensor is blocked out at the top right of the photo, but that's where the wires need to go. I need to get a schematic, but in the meantime hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.



Thanks!

On the last bronco I bought, the wires were not hooked up but were just hanging down under the driver side coming through a grommet in the footwell. Just look under the driver side near the frame and should see a small wiring harness going through firewall. Maybe your wires will still be intact.